How To Download A Video From A Private Facebook Group
A few days ago, I registered in one of those online challenges. During a week, you had to watch videos and work on daily goals. I knew this challenge brings high-value information, but I had no time to view the content.
Organizers used a private Facebook group in which they live-streamed the sessions, posted updates, and moderated discussions with their audience.
Later, they announced that the group stays, but they will delete all the videos. The challenge was coming to an end, and I had two options — watch all videos in one day, or download them and watch later at my pace. Naturally, I opted for the second choice.
Disclaimer: I don't endorse piracy in any way. In this post, I show you how to download content to which you were already authorized. I encourage you to download videos only for personal use and not share them with anyone else. Please respect the rights of the original authors.
Figuring out how to download the content took me several hours of trial-and-error. Usually, videos streamed to your phone or PC are segmented into tiny chunks, which are only a couple of seconds long. All these chunks are listed in a Manifest, and if you find this file, you can download all the segments and join them together. I'm familiar with a developer console in my browser. So far, I always found a way to download a video if it's not encrypted. But let me tell you — Facebook is chatty; quite possibly, you'll get lost in the logs even if you know what you're doing. There must be a better way.
I searched for a guide on how to download a video from a private FB group, and I found several of them. Also, I bumped into several online tools, which automate some steps for you. However, all these guides and tools used the same technique, which allows you to download a video only in a blurry SD format, which is suited for small mobile screens.
Method #1: SD download
This method is accessible for everyone, and you find a plethora of online tools that will make the process even more comfortable.
Step 1: Open a video link
Find a post with the video you want to download and expand the video so that it fits the whole page.
You should see a screen similar to this one:
Now, copy the video URL link. It should look like this:
1 https://www.facebook.com/vladimir.zahradnik1/videos/3175253852495827/
Note: Some groups have a video section with all their videos listed in one place.
Step 2: Edit the link to point to a mobile version of a web
It's easy — just replace the www part with m and open the new link instead:
1 https://m.facebook.com/vladimir.zahradnik1/videos/3175253852495827/
Now you should see a Facebook page designed for mobile phones.
Update 11/01/2020: As one of the readers pointed out, the method presented here wasn't working anymore. Facebook has changed their webpage for mobile devices, and now it is using an internal web player to play the video; you can't right-click on the video to save it. I found a simple workaround. Today, I made a quick walkthrough; I picked a random Facebook video for this demonstration. The procedure for the videos in private groups should be the same. In this tutorial, I am using Firefox, but the procedure in Chrome should be very similar. The video below follows from the point of opening the mobile version of the web.
The mobile version of the web points to a video file in its entirety; it is not split into smaller chunks. The downside of this approach is that the downloaded video is low-quality. Still, I prefer to have at least something to watch than nothing at all. In my original method, you could right-click on the video file and then click on the Save Link As... menu item. This approach doesn't work anymore. Still, there's a way how to download the video.
Each webpage has some resources, which the browser needs to download. Your video is one of them. All these resources are visible in a Network tab of the Developer console. There are several ways how to access this tab:
- Click on the "hamburger" menu button in the top-right corner. Then, click on the
Web Developermenu and select theNetworksubitem - Hit Ctrl+Shift+E
- Right-click on the video, click on the
Inspect Elementmenu item and then click on theNetworktab
Step 4: Hit F5 to refresh the webpage
Refreshing your webpage is an optional step, but it guarantees that all webpage resources are re-downloaded, including your video. Just hit F5, and you should see how your browser downloads the resources.
Step 5: Hit the Play button
After you start playing the video, you should see the video resource appear in the Network tab. There's a Media filter you can use to see only the relevant files.
Step 6: Download the video
Finally, you can right-click on the video resource and open it in a new tab. You have a direct link to the video file on this tab, and you can download your video after clicking on the Save Link As... menu item.
Method #2: HD download
Unlike the first method, the procedure I'm about to describe was not covered by anyone, despite much better results. It allows you to download videos in HD, preserving the highest quality possible.
youtube-dl
Youtube-dl is a tool I sometimes use when I want to download a video from YouTube. But don't get fooled by its name; this tool supports downloading videos out of many websites, including Facebook.
youtube-dl is a command-line program to download videos from YouTube.com and a few more sites. — official website
This application is written in Python and runs everywhere; I have it installed on my server just in case. While its main features are well documented, individual extractors like Facebook don't have any documentation besides its source code. The best way to test if youtube-dl can download a video is to try it out and see yourself.
Update 10/23/2020: youtube-dl source repository has been taken down after the DMCA notice from RIAA. The authors published on their website the latest source code archive and binaries; however, the future of this project is uncertain at the moment. I decided to create a repository mirror from its recent snapshot on my own git server. You can find the code here.
Update 11/17/2020: youtube-dl has been reinstated by GitHub. They explained in deep all the situation around youtube-dl.
Downloading a protected FB video
Under normal circumstances, youtube-dl works perfectly for downloading public videos. However, video from a private Facebook group is a different case. If you try to download it, youtube-dl eventually asks you for login credentials:
1 [ [email protected] Downloads ] $ youtube-dl https://www.facebook.com/vladimir.zahradnik1/videos/3175253852495827/
2 [ facebook ] 3175253852495827: Downloading webpage
3 [ facebook ] 3175253852495827: Downloading webpage
4 ERROR: This video is only available for registered users. Use --username and --password or --netrc to provide account credentials.
This time we didn't succeed, but the output looks promising — it shows us that this extractor most likely supports downloading protected content.
Note: While an extractor works one day, nobody can guarantee it will work on another day. Often, webpages change, and developers need to update this extractor to reflect the changes. If you know Python, even you can help!
Adding login information
Youtube-dl supports username and password as optional parameters. These are the credentials used on Facebook login. Let's try to download a video again, but with credentials specified:
1 [ [email protected] Downloads ] $ youtube-dl --username vladimir.zahradnik1 --password < my-password > https://www.facebook.com/vladimir.zahradnik1/videos/3175253852495827/
2 [ facebook ] Downloading login page
3 [ facebook ] Logging in
4 [ facebook ] 3175253852495827: Downloading webpage
5 [ facebook ] 3175253852495827: Downloading webpage
6 [ facebook ] 3175253852495827: Downloading webpage
7 [ download ] Destination: Facebook video
8 [ download ] 100% of 1.58GiB in 00:17
9 [ download ] Destination: Facebook video
10 [ download ] 100% of 80.90MiB in 00:00
11 [ ffmpeg ] Merging formats into "Facebook video #3175253852495827-3175253852495827.mp4"
12 Deleting original file Facebook video
13 Deleting original file Facebook video
Success! Now we have our video finally downloaded and can watch it anytime and anywhere, even without an internet connection.
Caveats
In my case, I downloaded more than 16 videos. During that time, I found several problems. For the first method, it's obvious — downloaded video is low-quality. The second method delivers the best results, but be prepared to deal with authentication and authorization issues:
Facebook two-factor authentication
If you use two-factor authentication to increase account security further, downloading with youtube-dl won't work. As you may know, two-factor authentication asks for your username and password. Still, you must also confirm your identity by other means. Typically, you enter a 6-digit code from your authentication app. In youtube-dl, there's no way how to supply further information.
App passwords
Not all applications support two-factor authentication. To cope with that, Facebook allows you to generate an app password. You should be able to log in without entering a password to your account and the additional code.
Typically, you generate an app password in your Facebook account's security settings. However, it looks like this feature doesn't work correctly. When I created a password, Facebook was still asking for an additional code. Maybe it's a bug, or Facebook just implemented this feature differently than anyone else. Also, when I tried to remove the generated entry, I got weird errors (definitely a bug).
So, if you use two-factor authentication and you want to download a private video, there is no other way than turning this feature off temporarily.
Your FB account may get blocked
Before youtube-dl downloads a video, it always sends your login information. This tool is stateless; it stores no cookie telling Facebook that it's still you. If you download more than a couple of videos, Facebook may notice unusual activity, and to mitigate possible damages, it blocks your account.
To unlock it, you need to change your password and go through several steps before Facebook lets you in again. During the last two days, I got blocked two times. Especially the second time was unexpected. Several hours passed since I downloaded all videos. At the time, I minded my own business, talked with some people over Messenger, and suddenly couldn't deliver my messages. First, I thought it was a strange bug. But after I completely logged out and in again, Facebook told me that they locked my account — again! Worth mentioning the screen to change a password was buggy. Facebook changed my password, but it displayed an error, and I was unable to continue. Ultimately, I made it work through the "I forgot the password" routine.
Conclusion
Despite some caveats, I'm more than happy with the second method. I have the content to watch anytime I want.
Youtube-dl is a handy tool, and if you didn't know about its existence, check it out. I'm thinking of taking a look at its internals. Perhaps I could add support for cookie handling, or other websites.
What's your take on downloading content? I'm on the fence — on the one hand, I download publicly available content. On the other hand, if authors decide to take the content down, is it suddenly illegal to still have a copy? I think it's a grey area, and I don't publish such videos to anyone.
Please let me know your opinions in the comments.
How To Download A Video From A Private Facebook Group
Source: https://www.zahradnik.io/how-to-download-videos-from-private-fb-groups/
Posted by: ottvoymaiden.blogspot.com
0 Response to "How To Download A Video From A Private Facebook Group"
Post a Comment